


Ghost Treats

by laughingpineapple



Category: Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective
Genre: Ficlet Collection
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-10-25
Updated: 2012-10-25
Packaged: 2017-11-17 00:44:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 13
Words: 1,445
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/545646
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/laughingpineapple/pseuds/laughingpineapple
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ghost Trick drabbles. Game timeline missing moments and new timeline headcanony snippets, mostly, or some slight what-if. (The archive warning is for said what-if, on chapter 3)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Sissel, Jowd, new timeline

**An ingenious type**

 

Jowd finds the sheet still winded into the typewriter as he sits down to write his report. He takes it out, makes a mental list of possible pranksters, ends up with zero suspects and a growing smile.

The page reads:

 

_childrens books are instructive_

 

_watchjing you read them out loud_

 

_she learns fast so do i if you planned this you couldve told me_

 

_but you wouldn t so i kept a secret too_

 

_two can play this game_

 

_hello detective jowd_

 

_this is a good home you kmnow_

 

_keep it good ill keepit safe_

 

_s_

 

_ps could do with bigger keys paws not fitted_

 

 

 

He hadn't planned anything.


	2. Alma/Jowd

Alma is a woman married to her work – that is, words. Words are what she seeks. In presence, by day, as she catalogues and tends to the books she so loves for everyone to read. She works side by side with words.  
As evening falls, she's learned to look for meanings in the silent pauses, to give voice to the corner of a smile, to dig under a barren layer of jokes, as dry and changeable as the desert sands, to find a deep stream of 'trust', 'devotion', 'warmth'.


	3. Jowd, Alma, Cabanela, game timeline what-if

“He was human. Deeply human” Jowd said at the funeral and it felt like the eventual confession of a well-kept secret. Alma realized hours later how distant those words had tried to be, devoid of all ties, all 'me' and 'us'. She cried for them both.

 

 *

 

The case was closed, unsolved, downplayed as a tragic accident. They lost their best man, they moved on. They had to.

Inspector Jowd was a powerful, respected man within the Special Investigations Unit – if somewhat slow at times, like an old computer laden with years of uncompressed, fragmented data and running a full scan at every new input.

“My powers are not of this world” and the pieces lined up in an instant. He dared to call it intuition.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think that Clover started this little 'verse where there's a Cabanela incident instead of an Alma incident and I think it's an interesting scenario.   
> I wonder what caused it and I'm stuck at a slightly less observing Yomiel... "So I began my revenge by killing him and at the same time mirroring my loss by taking away from you the most important person in your li--” “Dude that's my CHILD and WIFE” “Huh. Are you serious?” “For once, yeah...” “...coulda fooled my cat.” (what with the 'something immeasurably deep between them' line in canon)


	4. Missile, game timeline

Of course he is there when it happens. Of course he is there by her.  
The fan turns, the ball drops and tips the statue, the cupid turns and shoots: so this is how it goes. At a paw's distance, the ribbon lady drops without a shout. Others shout. Struggle. Try to save her life as the cold blue presence of that man slides away unnoticed. They cannot fight a ghost and they cannot save her, but he, he could. There is so much he could do in four minutes. In four minutes, he could wreck the contraption, reveal his presence to that man, be beaten at his own game, set a fragile future on a different path and erase all his hopes.  
So he welcomes her spirit and lets her go.

His future mistress cries. A ghost pomeranian cannot even lick her  
tears, so Missile sits by her and waits, waits, waits.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Or rather 'Ray, game timeline'. Where else would a ghost pomeranian spend ten long years if not watching over his future mistress? I do think that he was there as Alma was killed and that he didn't risk interfering because he'd already failed at Temsik and was very aware of his limits. Missiiiiiiiiiiiiile ç_ç


	5. Cabanela, Sissel, new timeline

Nothing wrong with competitiveness, baby!, he'd say in a twirl and a bow: every point in the spectrum of where he's come in life traces back to it, and it's a good life.   
It's when he starts feeling confrontational toward a cat that he realizes there might be a problem. With the cat.  
It's how there's always black hair on his spot on the couch while in every other occasion the mongrel's almost unnatural in how he doesn't shed.  
Or the way he prevents his jokes. Meows, scratches on the carpet, the whole gig. It could be chance, a constant 92% chance, or animal intuition. Still.  
Is this about territory?   
Now that's just silly. Juuust silly.  
"Top this in birds, baby", he grins at him as he parades toward the kitchen carrying a designer cake as white as snow and as red as his scarf.  
Sissel purrs.


	6. Jowd, Cabanela, game timeline

**It's hard not to trust him, in person**  
  
  
So that's what Jowd does. He trusts him to be interesting. He confides he'll outperform the beauty of a gun pointed at his chest. He drops his life in the hands of this man who does not care and trots along to see where it ends up killing him. It's funnier with two, after all.  
Cabanela sees him smiling and retorts with an open grin like an accomplice's.


	7. Jowd, Alma, new timeline

**Tomato Firing Range**  
  
  
"Not so careless with your shirts when it's your turn at the washing machine, love? Come on, you'll manage!" Alma laughed. Of all the preparation and rehearsal for that evening's dinner, her painstakingly scrupulous husband was... trying out his napkin?  
Jowd looked at the little place holders on the table, their names painted in Kamila's special party handwriting.   
"It's not my chicken I'm worried about."

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As a roasted chicken aficionado, I maintain that you don't need a napkin to eat /that/. You do, however, need a napkin to sit beside someone who's rather liberal with his spaghetti al sugo...  
> 


	8. Alma/Jowd, new timeline

Jowd was never generous with touches. Every kiss, every inch of skin under his fingertips was worth the world, and shared accordingly.  
But Alma can swear as he lingers, hesitant to let her go, that this is still true. There is a question, but she's afraid to voice it, so she kisses him back.


	9. Cabanela, game timeline

He is aware that if he gets in and cannot delay the execution, he'll crack. A pitiable end to his claims of perfection. Then again, if he does not get in, he's got nothing to hide or to lose anymore.  
They take the choice from him.  
He cracks.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "I came to... attend your execution. They told me what time it was... couldn't get into the chamber, so I was observing a moment of silence here. And when I looked up, my eyes full of tears, there you were, baby."


	10. Cabanela, Jowd, new timeline

He doesn't feel anything and the fact bothers him. They're not his memories. Those facts did not happen to him, not in this lifetime, and there was no spark of recognition as Jowd spouted word after terrible word in his distant voice.  
He doesn't feel anything. Bless the gods' pity, just this once.  
The fact bothers him because the thought alone is enough to keep him awake at night.


	11. Cabanela, Pigeon Man, game timeline

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> An overgrown askbox drabble for Fuuten which completes [this débacle](http://fuuten.tumblr.com/post/22260996148/couldnt-find-a-sparkling-tears-brush-its-my) (hey, at least I learned how to use brushes. You wish you'd learned how to use brushes for such a classy project, huh?) in answering to [this accurate portrayal](http://fuuten.tumblr.com/post/22248291042/laughingmango-astudyinobjection-all-right) of Jowd's arrival in ch15. This is the almost-serious version, if you wish.

“What's wrong, you madcap? You look mopped. Beside the obvious – the effort on that abandoned-rag-on-a-chair look is wasted, right now you're a natural. Quit it.”

“I didn't say anything.” Cabanela let out a careful sigh. The problem being that he didn't _get to_ say anything, as the big show of his unwavering heroic dedication missed its whole target audience by minutes. Lynne first, then him.

“You gave him the watch. You tell me you didn't do it for him to figure you out, I'm having Lovey Dove peck your nose so it doesn't grow like the bad liar you are.”

“He didn't say anything.”

The professor patted his pigeon's beak and laughed – he searched his mind for a dusty file on that impossible man's gratitude, memories made of long nights in the lab, analyses double and triple checked only to be greeted with a quick, firm nod and the flowing tails of his green coat already out of the door.

“Yeah, sure. He thanked you for the present, man, count your blessings. What were you expecting, a badge and a hug?”

Would a hug have been considered insensitive with his burns and broken ribs? Not insensitive enough?

“Wouldn't have ruled it ooout, baby.”

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (Them's Detective Jowd Appreciation Society members 3 and 5, they know what they're talking about. Ungrateful jerk is ungrateful.)


	12. Cabanela, Jowd

 

**Compulsive Cryptic Connotations Syndrome (subtext is where it's at)  
**

 

They can go on for hours. They can, ergo they do.

To an external listener, their words don't add up to dialogue, much less banter: they are taking turn at holding two parallel speeches of the most carefully rehearsed kind, swift and cohesive and self-sufficient to a T.

One is about Life, the Universe and Jowd's place in Everything. An autobiography in self-deprecating key, from a distant perspective.

When Cabanela holds the floor, it's variations on the theme of success.

Typical speeches – and nothing of interest was conveyed.

Except– to them, it ended in a clear 5-2, a good comeback from yesterday's sore defeat, as

today's loser acknowledges, and the other's grin turns a fraction wider. It was about a case, politics, what's for dinner, opinions on coffee and dogs, Kamila, mushrooms. Their puzzled audience walks away. Of course they could just _talk_ about life, but where's the fun in that?


	13. Jowd, extended family, new timeline

He cannot tell the child “I put you on my path, gave you my responsibilities.”

He cannot tell his friend “I made you waste your life for me as I wasted mine.”

He cannot tell the baby “I wasn’t there for you.”

He cannot tell his wife “You weren’t there.”

The words dig at his throat. He unmakes them and unthinks them, but they are rooted in his stomach. They’ll be back. There is no cure for memories.

So he makes new ones. He keeps them all close this time, these persons who somehow made it into his life, and nods as he sees them just breathing, smiling, being there. He looks after the young ones, certain that his own back is covered. The words are pushed back. For a time.

It’s not how things were. But sometimes he can breathe.


End file.
